Ray Emery’s impact on the Anaheim Ducks
Ray Emery landed a spot back in the NHL this week, on a one-year, two-way contract that costs the Anaheim Ducks virtually nothing. It’s an investment, of course, an affordable risk that has the potential to turn the franchise from a good team to a great one.
The Ducks don’t need Emery, they don’t need an injury-plagued backup goaltender with a history of attitude problems, but if the 28-year-old former Ottawa Senator can fill in as the secondary netminder they’ve envisioned, they could be laughing their way to home ice advantage in the first round of the playoffs.
Let’s review. The Ducks don’t just have a starting goaltender that gets the job, they have Jonas Hiller an All-Star bordering on unheralded superstar and former Olympian who anchors the team through thick and thin. The last thing they need is somebody to make his job easier because he makes it easy enough. Fiddling with a setup that already has Hiller as productive as he is would be foolish, but running him into the ground would be even worse.
So far this season Hiller has posted a save percentage of .925 with a GAA of 2.56 in 47 games. The Ducks themselves have played in just 54 games all year. It’s safe to say that the man could use a rest, he’s recently fallen ill with what doctors initially wanted to call a concussion but have more recently declared “tiredness”.
You say lightheadedness and fatigue? I say worn out like Clark Kent in the second episode of the sixth season of Smallville in which he works all night, every night for weeks on end to rebuild the city of Metropolis in the wake of broad-scale destruction caused by a General Zod-possessed Lex Luthor. Look out Western Conference, we all know how that played out*.
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As the key benefactors of Hiller’s typical brilliance, the Anaheim Ducks really only have one thing to focus on; managing the roster so that Hiller can stay at the top of his game for as long as a potential post-season run could take them. In order to do that, they’ll need to cut him some slack. The Ducks are currently just points away from taking the Pacific Division lead away from the Dallas Stars and claiming one of the conference’s top seeds.
Having started all but 10 of his team’s performances, a little relief work could go a long way in preserving Hiller’s abilities to lead the Ducks where they want to go. It’s really no surprise that unless he’s able to play at full capacity, he won’t be able to pull off such a feat. Nobody could.
So far this season the Ducks have turned to 27-year-old goaltender Curtis McElhinney to fill the role of Hiller’s backup, a goalie who had never previously started more than seven games in a single season.Though McElhinney has posted more than acceptable numbers (.916 save percentage and 2.76 GAA in 2010-11), the team could use some more confidence if they hope to make a deep run in the playoffs this year, confidence that only an elite goaltender could provide.
In Ray Emery, the Ducks get an experienced player who can spell Hiller when necessary, someone used to being the man and not just on an occasional basis when a win is a luxury as opposed to a need. As the final playoff stretch fast approaches, it’ll be essential for Anaheim to have another option so that Hiller himself can remain an option long into the postseason.
But the solution isn’t as straightforward as simply having Emery clear waivers. There’s a reason the 28-year-old has been bounced from the few homes he’s had thus far in his career. Though it has nothing to do with his skill it has everything to do with his attitude off the ice. Health issues, as well, have also played a part.
Over the course of the past few season Emery has done everything a player could do to raise more red flags than a Chinese paintball team (as far as I’m concerned there’s a checklist of three things). He’s 1) pouted publicly, 2) complained publicly and 3) been engaged in an altercation with a Russian pro-league equipment manager over a baseball cap.
Though his brief stint in Philadelphia last season was marred more by an abdominal injury than anything attitude related, teams typically stand by their men when they struggle with injuries out of their control. So why not Emery?
Let’s be honest, in the 2010 NHL offseason, the Flyers weren’t exactly stacked in net (with Michael Leighton and Brian Boucher their primary goaltenders), so perhaps Emery’s reputation as “not worth the risk” preceded him, even amongst the Philly brass.
Can you blame them? The questions that surround the young star are abundant, and nothing from his maniacal grin to the infuriating smirk as synonymous with his face as the professional boxing-themed helmets he wears, are helping to answer them.
If early reports are to be trusted, Emery has put the aforementioned abdominal troubles to bed and conquered an additional case of avascular necrosis that plagued him during his time off. The latter is a disease that compromises joint function as a result of limited blood supply to bone structures. It’s the same disease that hampered Bo Jackson, although diagnosed considerably sooner.
Signed to a two-way contract, Emery can be sent back and forth between Anaheim and their AHL affiliate in Syracuse, NY, giving him time to work himself back into routine and the Ducks a perfect “out” should a need for one arise.
It has already been announced that Emery will begin his tenure with Syracuse as he works his way back into “game shape” before making the jump up to Anaheim. Given the bonus concerns that team now has over his health in addition to his attitude, he’ll have the added pressure of performing in a comeback year.
Should the Emery-in-Anaheim project flame out, the Ducks, like the Flyers before them, have a pre-packaged excuse to part ways with the goaltender. It’ll be of particular significance if they find themselves with any reservations regarding his attitude.
Though you can’t exactly sympathize with a man whose reputation is built upon a sour attitude, it makes for an intriguing story line to follow over the course of the remainder of the season.
The only way that Ray Emery can preserve a spot in the NHL, on a contender no less, is if he satisfies both the lofty injury and attitude expectations people will have for him from day one. If he’s not on his best behavior each and every day, he’ll be back out of Anaheim before the valet at the Honda Center can park his customized white Hummer.
Emery might not save the day for the citizens of Anaheim like Hiller is expected to, but even Clark Kent needed a little support from eccentric Oliver Queen sometimes. Let’s just hope he sticks around long enough to show the team what he’s capable of, because the Ducks could be a lot more than just fringe contenders if the investment pays off.
*You don’t? Shame on you. Clark falls ill for the first time in his life having never been challenged so physically under Earth’s yellow sun and thus discovers the ability to use his superbreath after an unfamiliar (and untimely) sneeze.
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